Counting Clocks
by PipPipCheerio0205
Summary: This is a story speaking the truth about age. Time is not kind to anyone.


Late afternoon it was, when our sisters could be seen rocking beside a crackling fireplace, a fireplace left unattended for years, slowly clogging up the chimney with black embers. The room's light was scant to many splotches of shadows around where the two women knitted, and the curtains had been rolled shut. One could not even tell that it had been day outside; but they had lost their vigor for the sun's light ages ago.

The sister who we shall introduce first, as she rocked there quietly, and peacefully, was the girl whose name used to carry so much bliss and comfort to the tongue, Anna. However, now the name was just as dusty and worn as she was: knitting, her old fingers frail, as she focused on the purple strings of the quilt. The light in her eyes had faded, now they were a dark gray, hid under the deep bags around them. She spoke not a word, the loose skin under her neck squashed between her chin and bosom, and neither her clothes aged well: they were torn around the sleeves, and her white apron was stained with old boiling grease.

By now, you must understand that her youth had died, along with her happiness. She never thought about growing old, never occurred to her; but now, as she rocked there, and you, the reader, envision her with your own thoughts, realize that our times are not forever. Never will they be. This is the fact of life, it is the only thing that, truly, in the end, matters. We will now move on to the second sister.

Her hair had always been white, from her time as a babe, to her time as a woman; but now, sadly, the wisps of her once flowing hair had turned more gray than her own sister's. Time is never kind, not to me, not to you very reader; however, there are some whose sanity will slip whenever they are faced with their own image staring back at them. They cannot face to see themselves old, useless, living by only the faintest heart beats inside their wrinkled chest. It is sad, really, it is. This old, useless image seemed to plague Elsa whenever she would look into the reflecting water of the ocean: her beauty gone, her life almost over, and now, as she sat there, she wondered to herself if things could've been better.

She looked at her sister, Anna, the one who allowed a small tear to fall on her lap, knitting still, and not daring to return Elsa's gaze. And Elsa, the one who would be eighty, if she lived till' then, said, "Anna, my dearest sister, do you think we've lived a well enough life?"

Maybe. Maybe not. Anna couldn't answer the question, but she did stop knitting to say: "I can't say if "we've" lived a well enough life. However, I can say that I think I have."

And Elsa answered, "Why is it that I see you cry, then? Why do you scorn and curse your lost beauty? Why is that every time I see you, you're sobbing?"

And Anna said, "Because I fear that you haven't. I fear that because you don't curse your own lost beauty, that you do not miss it, and that your life before now has been forgotten. Is it so much a crime to weep over a fond memory?"

Elsa did not answer to this. Take what I say, reader, she _couldn't_ answer to this. The last word Anna spoke, _memory, _was the final word that the fragile ears of the Queen heard. With the dying beat of her heart's final pulse, her arms went limp, her eyes open, as her chest fell upon her lap, and the needle in her hand descended quietly to the floor.

This was the day, the Queen, the Queen whose life's purpose had been to care for her kingdom, this was the day she died. Her final breath, as final as the final thread Anna sewed into her purple quilt, was the beginning of a brand new start. Whether it be in an afterlife, or just in death, that is up to you to decide reader.

Was it, that for a single moment, when Anna spoke of _fond memories, _did Elsa die with what had long ago been lost: happiness? No one will know, ever, not Anna, not me, for I cannot tell you, and not you, because you aren't the one who writes this story. And even though that might be true, you physically don't write this story, it is, in all actuality, _is _your story, as it is mine.

This was not a story to share about the Queen's death. No. This was a story about the death of the very person who haunts the image of your mirror. Go now, reader. Look upon yourself, count the days, because in the end, your final tick is coming. Sooner, than what you might think.


End file.
